Category: Family

I had always thought that the day my grandma passed would be the worst day of my life. I didn't know it would be the morning after. For the first time in twenty-four years I existed in a place my grandma physically did not. My heart beat in place of hers. I made my dad …

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"Her body will tell us if it's too much." Dr. Omari's words are running through my mind and ringing in my ears. Her body is trying to tell us, but I don't want to listen. She hasn't opened her eyes today. My grandma is not my grandma. She's puffy from the 25 pounds of fluid …

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Today, my dad and I ignore what those police officers told us 9 days ago as we step off the elevator and get ready to open the door to my grandma's apartment. Over the past week I've googled companies that can come and clean up her apartment, but I don't want strangers walking through my …

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She is so alert today. She is trying to hard to communicate something to us, but none of us can seem to get it right. I don't know how she can even form sentences with that tube down her throat. First she pointed to her eyes. "Do you want your glasses?" she nods. After I …

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Today they tell us they are providing "supportive care." It means there is nothing they can do except hope and pray that her body can fight hard enough to survive. The dialysis should be working by now. They have filled her with so much fluid these past four days, but none of it is coming …

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This is the morning we find out nobody knows anything. They know they have no reversal because they call down to the pharmacy and are told one doesn't exist. It never has. The cardiologist writes in his notes, "research anecdote for pradaxa." The cardiologist who prescribed it to her four years earlier doesn't know there …

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It's 1:30am on Wednesday. We've been sitting in the waiting room for hours now, waiting for them to get her settled into her new room. The ICU is like a culdesack of the most critically ill. My grandma's neighbors are loud, their machines beeping and humming for hours on end. Finally, the doctor comes in …

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It's 6:30pm on Tuesday. I've just hung up the phone with my grandma. She called to ask if I wanted to pick up my groceries from her house, asked about my day, told me about her's. "Tomorrow" I said, because there is always tomorrow. She asked me if she should call me back to …

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To my grandma, I want you to know I would have lived a thousand lifetimes in that sterile, white room of the ICU. I want you to know that I would have given my life to save yours. You taught me how to love and when it was time for love to be tested, as …